The unbelieving world assumes that Christians know not a
thing about suffering. I recently came across this internet meme doing the
rounds on social networking sites. It’s a picture of an African boy looking
amusingly at a woman.
‘So you’re telling
me that Jesus loves me even though I’m homeless and starving to death?’ The
words were meant to be sarcastic in nature.
The general assumption of the non-Christian world, and
even in the church, is that when trouble besets a father, mother, or a child,
Christians do nothing more than just whisper a soft ‘Jesus loves you’. This
could be true – I have come across, on many occasions, people who left the
church because of strife in their domestic lives. People often find it hard to
comprehend how a loving God could seem to be so far away in times of trouble.
And much too often, offering sympathy is just not enough.
There is no easy answer to why we suffer in this world or
why God allows the suffering to take place. It is one thing to write an
apologetics work on the subject, but to convince a mother facing the inevitable
death of her cancer-stricken child – that’s a different thing altogether. But
it helps to tell a story once in a while to the afflicted. Stories remind
people that the agony they face has been faced before, that the suffering they
endure has been endured before, and that the loss they feel has been felt
before.
Mankind’s sinful nature brings about a hideous
consequence that is often borne by the little innocents of this world. We can
see examples of this throughout the Old Testament. When God cast His judgment
on the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15, His judgment fell on the innocent children as
well. Similarly in Exodus 11 the firstborn children of the Egyptians received
death. This does not mean that God is some kind of a ‘heavenly hit-man’. God does not take pleasure in the death of
anyone (Ezekiel 18:32), but He loves us relentlessly. It is His relentless love
for us that causes Him to cast His wrath upon us.
When Jesus saw a large crowd before Him, he felt
compassion (Mark 6:34). We can guess the evil, the sorrow, the hardship, and
many other things evident in the lives of people who formed that crowd. People
like you and me were in that crowd, and some of them were the worst of sinners.
Nevertheless, Christ did feel compassion for them.
When God told Isaiah about the suffering Servant who was
to come, Isaiah must have been startled.
Surely He took up
our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered Him
punished by God,
stricken by Him, and afflicted.
But He was pierced
for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment
that brought us peace was on Him,
and by His wounds we are healed.
We all, like
sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has
laid on Him
the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6 NIV)
Here was God, ready to come into the world in the flesh
and share our suffering!
The very nature of Christ’s birth indicates that God was
more than willing to share in our poverty. Is this God’s relentless love for
us, that He chooses to be born among the poor and afflicted and actually live with us? The popular singer Bono says
it beautifully.
“Love here describes itself as a child born in straw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all, without honor.”
“Love here describes itself as a child born in straw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all, without honor.”
The wonderful thing about Christ Jesus is that He made
His dwelling with us (John 1:14).
Scriptures say that Christ had no luxurious upbringing and no powerful
connections. Instead He was often at odds with those who had luxury and power.
Scriptures say that Christ became nothing
for us (Philippians 2:7).
Would it be too much for me to say that Christ can relate to our suffering? When Christ
cried on the cross – "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" – He
experienced that painful loneliness of being separated from a loved one. When
Christ Jesus prayed in anguish before His trial – “Father, if you are willing,
take this cup from me…” – He felt the agony many of us face in our lives. When
Jesus wept at Lazarus’ grave he felt the loss of Mary and Martha in the same
way many of us feel for our brothers and sisters.
In Isaiah 53:3 (KJV), Christ is known as ‘a man of
sorrows’. In this Man of sorrows we can relate our own sorrows and we can hope
for glory. Paul was no stranger to this. He writes:
For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. (2 Corinthians 1:5 NIV)
For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. (2 Corinthians 1:5 NIV)
When we look at the story of Jesus, we can hope for glory
in our suffering. Christ died an agonizing death on the cross, it was a level
of suffering on par with Auschwitz, Hiroshima and Dresden. But through His
death came the glory of the resurrection and the hope of eternal life in
mankind.
I know a close friend of mine who suffers from this incurable skin
disease. I cannot imagine what it must be like for him to bathe in his daily
life. Once I asked him, “How do you go through this every day?”
“Jesus”, he replied, “He suffered for me, didn’t He?”
In Christ Jesus we who believe on Him can relate our
pain and sorrow.
Jesus once said, "Come
to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."
(Matthew 11:28 NASB)
P.S. I highly
recommend Jim McGuiggan’s wonderful book ‘Celebrating the Wrath of God: Reflections on the Agony and the Ecstasy of His Relentless Love’.
